Banks, Fintechs Report 42,082 Suspicious Transactions to NFIU as AML Reporting Patterns Shift

Banks, fintech operators and other reporting entities filed 42,082 Suspicious Transaction Reports, STRs, with the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, NFIU, in 2025, providing a fresh indication of how Nigeria’s financial sector is responding to tighter anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing controls.

The figures are contained in the NFIU’s 2025 Annual Report, which shows that the intelligence agency also received 41.72 million Currency Transaction Reports, CTRs, and 10,513 Suspicious Activity Reports, SARs, during the year.

Deposit Money Banks accounted for the overwhelming majority of the suspicious transaction filings. They submitted 38,715 STRs, representing about 92 per cent of the total. Other Financial Institutions filed 2,185 reports, while Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions submitted 1,029. Capital market operators and insurance companies accounted for 104 reports, while Virtual Asset Service Providers, including cryptocurrency-related businesses, filed 49.

The reporting data places Nigeria’s banking sector at the centre of the country’s financial intelligence architecture, but the figures also reveal a striking shift in reporting patterns.

STR filings fell sharply from 82,143 in 2024 to 42,082 in 2025, a decline of about 48.8 per cent. Suspicious Activity Reports also dropped by approximately 55 per cent, from 23,364 to 10,513.

At the same time, Currency Transaction Reports surged by 61.6 per cent, rising from 25.82 million to 41.72 million. Reports relating to Politically Exposed Persons also increased by 31.1 per cent, from 21.47 million to 28.13 million.

The divergence is significant from a compliance perspective.

A reduction in suspicious transaction reports does not necessarily mean suspicious activity itself has declined. It could reflect stronger filtering by financial institutions, changes in reporting practices, improved transaction-monitoring systems or a shift in how institutions classify potentially suspicious activity.

It could also raise a more uncomfortable question: are reporting institutions becoming better at identifying genuinely suspicious transactions, or are fewer transactions reaching the STR threshold because of changes in internal compliance processes?

The answer matters because STRs are not simply another regulatory filing. They are a key source of financial intelligence used to identify possible money laundering, terrorism financing and other financial crimes.

The NFIU said it works with the Central Bank of Nigeria, the National Insurance Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Special Control Unit Against Money Laundering to ensure reporting entities comply with applicable requirements.

The regulatory obligations are substantial. Under Section 11 of the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, financial institutions are required to report transactions above N5 million for individuals and N10 million for legal persons within seven days. The law also requires reporting of incoming and outgoing transfers above $10,000 within 24 hours.

The data also provides an early indication of changing compliance behaviour among virtual asset businesses. VASPs submitted no STRs during the first half of 2025, but reported 17 in the third quarter and 32 in the fourth quarter. They also began filing Currency Transaction Reports during the second half of the year.

That development comes as Nigerian regulators continue to bring the digital financial ecosystem deeper into the formal AML framework.

The NFIU report also recorded 28,133,909 Politically Exposed Person reports during 2025. Banks again accounted for most of these submissions, while Other Financial Institutions recorded a particularly sharp increase during the final quarter.

Beyond banks and fintechs, the NFIU’s compliance activity extended to higher-risk non-financial sectors. Its Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions division conducted joint on-site examinations of 29 reporting entities operating in areas including real estate, casinos, dealers in precious metals and stones, and consultancy services in the Federal Capital Territory.

The inspections resulted in 20 new registrations on the RapidAML portal and the filing of 1,029 Suspicious Transaction Reports.

The broader direction is towards more automated compliance. The Central Bank of Nigeria has been developing standards that would require regulated financial institutions to deploy intelligent AML systems capable of real-time transaction monitoring, anomaly detection, behavioural analysis and risk scoring.

Those systems are also expected to integrate with core banking platforms, customer onboarding systems and transaction processors, with automated reporting to the NFIU.

For financial institutions, the latest NFIU figures therefore underline a compliance environment that is becoming increasingly data-driven.

The challenge is no longer simply filing reports. Institutions must demonstrate that their transaction-monitoring systems can identify unusual behaviour, that customer risk profiles are regularly updated, that alerts are properly investigated and that decisions to file, or not file, suspicious transaction reports can withstand regulatory scrutiny.

For the NFIU and other regulators, the sharp fall in STRs alongside the substantial increase in threshold-based transaction reporting presents another challenge. The critical question is whether the change represents improved compliance efficiency or an emerging gap in suspicious-activity detection.

That distinction will become increasingly important as Nigeria moves towards more sophisticated financial crime surveillance.

The 2025 data therefore tells two stories at once. Financial institutions are generating substantially more regulatory data, yet the number of reports specifically identifying suspicious transactions has fallen considerably.

For compliance officers, regulators and investigators, the real issue is what sits behind that divergence. The volume of reports is important, but the quality of the intelligence, the effectiveness of transaction monitoring and what happens after an STR is filed may ultimately provide a far more meaningful measure of Nigeria’s AML enforcement framework.

Anti-Money Laundering, Financial Crime, Regulatory Compliance, Banking Compliance, Fintech Regulation, Financial Intelligence, Transaction Monitoring, KYC & Customer Due Diligence, Regulatory Enforcement, Digital Assets, Nigeria Financial Sector